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VERMONT LAWMAKERS AGREE ON ASSISTED SUICIDE MEASURE — The state House narrowly passed a Senate plan late last night, sending the measure to Gov. Peter Shumlin, who is expected to sign it. If he does, Vermont will become the first state to enact assisted suicide legislation without a popular vote at the ballot and the third state overall to allow it, along with Oregon and Washington. The measure, modeled after the Oregon plan, would allow doctors to prescribe life-ending medication to patients determined by two doctors to be within six months of dying. http://politico.pro/17nyq4W

SEBELIUS SOLICITATIONS RESULT IN E&C PROBE — You know it’s a tumultuous time on the Hill when a fresh Obamacare controversy isn’t even among the top two scandals on the radar of GOP leadership. From questions about Benghazi to the IRS’s targeting of conservative organizations, the questions raised by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s pitch to the health industry to help implement Obamacare is third in the pecking order, but it’s starting to break through. Sen. Lamar Alexander urged the GAO on Monday to investigate Sebelius’s pitch, just two days after suggesting — over vehement objections from the White House — that her solicitation for help might’ve been illegal. Alexander took his push to the Senate floor, and it’s unclear where he’ll go next. The House Energy and Commerce Committee also announced a probe Monday. http://politi.co/101ubbs

WHITE HOUSE OFFERS MINI REPRIEVE TO STATES WEIGHING EXPANSION — The to-expand-or-not-to-expand Medicaid debate in red states will have a real impact on thousands, if not millions, of lives. But in states that ultimately forgo expansion, the hit won’t be as hard as it could be. The Obama administration decided Monday that it won’t factor in Medicaid expansion decisions when determining cuts to safety-net hospitals over the next two years. States will still see their so-called DSH payments drop, but not as sharply as they might if expansion decisions were part of the calculation. “That means states won’t face a financial penalty for refusing the Medicaid expansion, though they’d still forgo billions in federal Medicaid dollars to cover some of their poorest residents,” Pro’s Jason Millman reports. http://politi.co/YGsWgQ

Happy Tuesday and welcome to PULSE, where we’re wondering how long it’ll take for the AP’s phone records turn into fodder for the late-night comedy crowd. Seizing journalists’ phone records is no laughing matter, but envisioning what those records showed? That could make for a top-notch lampoon. Your move, Jon Stewart.

“Thanks for the PULSE that you've given me. I want you to know I believe in your song.” (h/t Peggy Girshman)

GOSNELL CONVICTION AMPLIFIES NATIONAL ABORTION DEBATE – A jury on Monday convicted Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia-based abortion provider, of three counts of first-degree murder, the climax of a grisly, weekslong trial that riveted stakeholders in the nation’s abortion debate. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the 72-year-old OB-GYN. Gosnell, accused of snipping the spinal cords of living newborns, became a poster-child for anti-abortion groups, who routinely described his clinic as a “house of horrors.” POLITICO’s Kevin Cirilli also catalogued the evolution of the trial into a debate about media coverage. Conservatives railed against the press for what they described as lackluster interest and skimpy coverage. http://politi.co/10J3qd4

-- Pro’s Kathryn Smith reports that the verdict poured kerosene on a smoldering battle over regulating abortion in the United States. Abortion rights advocates quickly contended that Gosnell’s shady clinic underscores the need the eliminate barriers to abortion, lest other Kermit Gosnells crop up. NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue took a different lesson. “Justice was served to Kermit Gosnell today and he will pay the price for the atrocities he committed,” said Hogue in a statement after the verdict. “Anti-choice politicians, and their unrelenting efforts to deny women access to safe and legal abortion care, will only drive more women to back-alley butchers like Kermit Gosnell.” But critics say Gosnell’s crimes underscore the need for stringent health and safety regulations of abortion to keep women and newborns safe. http://politi.co/10utmn4

**A message from POWERJOBS: New positions on our radar this week include: Postdoctoral Fellow at SAIC Frederick, Project Advisor for AARP, Director ofFederal Affairs for the American Chemistry Council, Medical Writer for SAIC Frederick and more. Check out the latest career opportunities on POWERJOBS, the career site for Washington’s top talent!**

NEW SCOTUS CHALLENGE COULD HAVE LEGS — That’s the conclusion of the Constitutional Accountability Center’s Simon Lazarus, a health law supporter, writing in The New Republic. He says that the latest lawsuit against the health law — the challenge to allowing tax subsidies into the federal exchange — could whack the health reform law if it hits the Supreme Court. “If the case makes its way to the Supreme Court, and all five members of the Supreme Court’s conservative bloc buy Carvin’s rationale, the result would, in rejectionist states, subvert the ACA’s central purpose and stiff the very population the law was enacted to benefit,” Lazarus writes. “Without those subsidies, in states with federally facilitated exchanges, the individual mandate, constitutional though the court has declared it, simply won’t work.” The TNR piece http://on.tnr.com/13tUjMI. The Pro story on the issue http://politico.pro/13fCz4g

MAINE HOSPITAL, INSURER TEAM UP TO OFFER EXCHANGE PLAN — Maine consumers could be facing an Obamacare-fueled quandary this fall: The federal exchange set to go live on Oct. 1 appears likely to feature just one major health plan and one small nonprofit cooperative, the Bangor Daily News reports. And that major insurer, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, just struck a deal with one of the state’s most prominent providers — MaineHealth — to offer a limited network plan, meaning people who typically seek care at other hospitals might have to switch doctors, according to the report. It’s another droplet of foreboding news for the administration as the nation nears full implementation of the health law. If providers and insurers team up to the exclusion of competitors, what does that mean for competition and the value of insurance exchanges? http://bit.ly/12jqixY

HAPPENING TODAY — California, whose sheer size makes it a disproportionate bellwether of the impact of Obamacare, will dole out grants to organizations who help locate and educate people about the availability of the state’s insurance exchange. Board members of Covered California, the state exchange, as well as grant recipients, will get together today in Los Angeles to announce grants to 48 organizations.

--The Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care will offer three recommendations today to the Senate Finance Committee as it considers ways to reform the Medicare physician payment formula: Include a section specifically about therapy services in institutional settings, repeal a therapy cap and payment reduction for multiple procedures and begin developing models to reward providers for high-quality therapy.

--Bloomberg is offering a seminar on what the disparity between state and federal marijuana laws means for business: http://bit.ly/100MaPd

--The National Association of Specialty Health Organizations will lean on lawmakers to support chiropractic care as a covered benefit under the umbrella of primary care. A white paper the group plans to release today in advance of its visit to the Hill notes that 22 million people visit a chiropractor every year and that chiropractors are often called upon to treat chronic back pain, one of the most common chronic conditions in the country. NASHO estimates there are 50,000 licensed, practicing chiropractors in the country.

PA. LAWMAKERS SEEK EXTENSION OF COST-CUTTING PROGRAM — Pennsylvania lawmakers asked CMS chief Marilyn Tavenner on Monday to renew a Medicare grant program that encourages local doctors to cut costs. Sen. Pat Toomey and Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, both Republicans, and Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Allyson Schwartz, Democrats, asked Tavenner today to consider extending the Medicare Coordinated Care Demonstration project, which is due to expire at the end of June, Pro’s Paige Winfield Cunningham reports. “Terminating a program with high beneficiary satisfaction and proven Medicare savings appears counter-productive to federal efforts to put Medicare on a sustainable path,” the lawmakers wrote. http://politico.pro/10mdXcm

REPORT: MASS. EXPERIENCE HAS LESSONS FOR ACA EMPLOYER MANDATE — PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Health Research Institute delivered a fresh look at Massachusetts’s health care experience Monday, finding that the proportion of employers offering health care actually increased as the state implemented its first-in-the-nation individual and employer mandate. In particular, the report concluded that the tax implications created by the state law made it advantageous for employers to continue, and even increase, their health care offerings. The report: http://pwc.to/14hD5ks

DEMS SHRED E&C REPORT ON OBAMACARE’S IMPACT ON PREMIUMS — Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee called a Republican report claiming that insurance rates will rise dramatically because of the health reform law “deeply flawed.” “The major methodological error is that the report ignores the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that will reduce costs in the individual market, such as tax credits for individuals and small businesses,” Democratic committee staff wrote in a memo. “The result is a one-sided report full of misleading conclusions that conflict with the findings of independent experts.” The report released Monday morning by E&C Republicans said individual insurance plans could cost 96 percent more on average in 2014.

WHAT WE’RE READING

National Journal’s Chris Frates reports on an $850,000 donation by America’s Health Insurance Plans to NFIB in 2012, a move that subtly helped underwrite a campaign against Obamacare’s health insurance tax: http://bit.ly/10uXT3U

A House E&C panel is asking questions about the May 3 resignation of a senior FDA official whose role and responsibilities with the agency were unclear, Reuters reports: http://reut.rs/10U3jp8

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